Thursday, September 4, 2014

The Idler, Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Get new specs

 

NEVER neglect to get your eyes tested regularly to get new specs. I did this the other day, after a lapse of many years, and - Voila! What a difference!

 

The gals suddenly leap out at you astonishingly vivid. Banknotes look enormous. And the upper rigging of the damsels in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties … words fail me!

 

Have your eyes checked regularly.

 

Rum ration

READER Tex Murray says when he was in the navy the rum ration was not as I mentioned.

 "Nobody got his thumb in the measuring tot.

"Rum was issued daily, one eighth of a pint per man. Petty officers had neat rum whilst the ratings had it diluted with two parts water, so that they could not save it. The rum was called  'bubbly'.

"Daily a member of the mess was designated as bubbly bosun. His job was to collect the rum. At the rum store the officer of the watch supervised the  distribution to all the messes.

"Occasionally when a new barrel was opened the captain might wish to tastes it with the bubbly bosuns."

"The bubbly bosun would issue the tots and it was standard practice to give a dash to the bosun as sippers."

No thumbs then? Maybe we were in the navy at different times. I was there just before Trafalgar.

Collapso

INVESTMENT analyst Dr James Greener reflects sombrely in his latest grumpy newsletter on the travails of African Bank and the savagery of the market.

"Disguised behind fancy names like 'unsecured lending' and 'micro lending' and drenched in good intentions – while charging eye-watering interest rates – far too many of African Bank's  borrowers come from communities badly impacted by the loss of wages and jobs loss through strike action.

"And so this week it had to disclose that there was an R8 billion hole in its accounts. Now the bank's funding model has little direct exposure to the savings of the man in the street and so the country has been spared the sight of depositors queuing to withdraw their money. However, the big financial institutions who have been lenders to and investors in African Bank are obviously going to have a very bad weekend doing some nasty sums and working out what to tell their own clients.

"One of these institutions with the largest exposure is the Government Employees Pension Fund and so assuredly the aftershocks will rumble on for quite a while longer. Politicians will become involved and that's lethal.

"It all happened so quickly. For detached observers it was fascinating to watch the speed and scale of the collapse of African Bank's share price. Whether the person who bought at 689 cents per share on Monday was the same one who sold at 28 cents per share we shall never know, but the spectacle has been a terrifying reminder of how savagely markets can work."

 

 

THE country districts are parched and wintry. But at least it's time for the winter aloes, which in the Southern Districts are always an absolute treat.

 

The Paton Country Railway is offering one of its steam train trips  from Creighton to a spot south-east, on the banks of the Ngangwana River.

 

The Shayamoya Express will leave Creighton station at 10am on Saturday, September 13, returning at 3.30 pm. Potjiekos lunch will be served and there will be a cash bar.

 

Tickets are R300 for adults, R200 for children up to 12 and free for children younger than three.

 

Bookings: Rayna rayna1@telkomsa.net  (082-8797869); or Glynnis: glynnis@toocee.co.za   (083-2738037)

 

 

 

 

                             

Tailpiece

 

A PAINTER by the name of Murphy was a gifted portrait artist. People from all over Ireland came to get him to paint their likenesses.

Then one day a beautiful young Englishwoman arrived at his house and studio in a swanky car and asked if he would paint her in the nude. Money was no object, she said.

This was the first time anyone had made such a request. Murphy was a bit perturbed. He asked if he could consult his wife.

 

Next thing he was back. "T'would be me pleasure to paint yer portrait, missus. De wife says it's okay.

"I'll paint ya in de nude all right, but I have to at least leave me socks on so I have a place to wipe me brushes."

 

Last word

 

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

George Bernard Shaw, 

 

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